One Flesh
by Hakeber.N
Summary: "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." (Genesis 29:20, KJV.)


You are thirteen years old, and you have just met the most beautiful girl you've ever seen.

You're at your first real rock concert. Your dad dropped you off, saying he'd wait for you nearby, leaving you to brave the front-row chaos on your own. You're taking in the music, shouting along with every word, reveling in the feel-good energy thrumming around you. Jostling and being jostled. And gosh, everyone else is so _tall—_you can barely make out the members of Newsboys between the trunks of bodies and branches of arms.

But eventually, you get tired of the closeness. (And just plain tired.) Your phone tells you it's late, later than you thought the concert would run, and you're trying to find a place quiet enough to call your dad when you bump into her.

Well, not literally, of course—back here, in the middle of the concert hall, the crowds have thinned enough that everyone has a little space. But it's still so loud that when she tries to say something, all you see is her lips moving, and all you hear is the music. You must look confused, though, because she smiles (the strobe lights catching fish-like on her hooked teeth) and grabs your shoulders and pulls you close. Yells into your ear.

"You look so familiar! Do you go to Brownfields too?"

You try to answer, but it's still too loud, and you're not really comfortable with getting close enough to respond. Heck, your face is still red from when she just grabbed you—but thankfully it's too dark for her to see.

You make a few gestures suggesting she follow you outside, and she must understand them well enough because when you step out onto the sidewalk, she's right behind you. The two of you stand still for a second, waiting for your hearing to adjust to the relative silence of downtown Baton Rouge.

You sigh—a happy-tired sigh, like after a rough day of football practice—and turn to face her. Even here, bleached a flat orange under the streetlight, she's terribly beautiful, and you stall and stammer and finally get a question out. "What did you say in there?"

She takes a minute to respond, her surprisingly dark eyebrows furrowing under that shock of blonde hair. "Ummmm. You go to Brownfields, right? The Christian school? I thought I knew you from somewhere…"

"Oh, right," you say, grinning at the sudden recognition. "Yeah, I just moved here. My name's Josh Wheaton."

She says her name's Cara…Kera? Kara? You can't figure out how to spell it, and she giggles when you say so. She pulls a red sharpie out of her purse. "I thought we'd get here early enough to find the band and have them sign my CD," she explains parenthetically.

"Did it work?"

She laughs—gently, not mocking, although you feel like an obvious concert newbie. "_Heck_ no. We got here two hours before doors opened, and the line was already halfway to the river."

You're about to ask if she's joking or not when she reaches out, grabs your hand, and pulls it close. You're blushing again, you can feel it: but she doesn't notice, biting her lip in concentration, willing your hand to stay still, though you couldn't stop it shaking if you tried. A flash of nail polish—a memory of warmth, a ghost of a squeeze—and you've got your hand back, emblazoned with a schoolyard tattoo. Kara.

"Nice to meet you, Kara," you say, and kiss your own hand instead of hers, right on the still-tacky ink. A parody of old-fashioned gentlemanhood. "Eww, gross," she squeals, then laughs at the grimace the ink-bitter taste gives you. You laugh too, then both of you pause. You look down at your phone, while she cranes her neck towards the concert revelry still going on inside.

"Well, I better get going," she says, making a quarter turn back towards the concert hall. "My youth group's probably in there looking for me."

You say, "Yeah, you better find them then, haha," or something similar, babbling really, as she approaches the venue and opens the heavy wooden door. She turns back to you, flicking her hair out of her face with a seemingly unconscious motion. "See you around?"

"Definitely," you say, hoping you sound "confident football player" and not "creepy concert stranger." You raise your hand in a half-wave. "See you, Kara."

She smiles at that, or maybe at the dull red writing still on your hand, and the door closes with an incongruous slam, and it's too dark in there for you to see her anymore.

OOOOO

You are fifteen years old, and she's still the most beautiful girl you know. She's charming when she talks, and vivid when she fights, and glowingly pretty when she cries—a pale moon crying opal tears, clutching your jacket with a fierce love-hate grip.

She's in your arms like this one day when you tell her the line about the moon. You hope it'll make her feel better. Instead she snaps, "Oh, just _stop_ with the Shakespeare already, Josh. I don't care about your love poems. But what I _do _care about is you getting your _grades up._"

She nods over to the coffee table in front of your parents' couch. It's strewn with papers and half-dead pens, the food scraps of a study date gone sour. "You're ruining our future, you know that? Just ruining it." And at that, she curls up again, her face tucked against your chest. Soaking your T-shirt with opals.

You don't know what to say. It's always been…well, _interesting_, being with Kara. Her clairvoyant—or maybe just desperately optimistic—plotting of your lives together. Her mood swings. Her sudden declarations of breakup and reconciliation, as frequent and temporary as rainstorms.

But you love her. You know you do. You just…haven't been able to tell her yet. So instead you run your hand through her hair, down a cascade of curls, until it rests on the back of her neck. Your thumb traces circles, spirals, nonsense words. And you wait.

Eventually she calms down, gulping a little, and looks up at you. This close, her eyes are huge—more gray than blue, really, and lost in her tear-jeweled eyelashes. You think of saying that, but then you realize, no, you really shouldn't. You wait.

And you're not sure who closes the gap but you're kissing, the way you always do after a fight—softly, wonderingly, every time as if it were the first. She moves in your lap, turning, maybe, trying to face you better, her clenched fists opening like flowers against your chest—

And suddenly the front door clatters open and your mom comes in from the garden. You hear the gentle _tmp_ of boots on linoleum, and her call from the kitchen: "Everything all right in there?"

In a flash, Kara's at her designated end of the couch, shuffling her papers together. Leaving enough room for Jesus, and a couple of His disciples besides. "Doing fine, Mrs. Wheaton," she sings out, then stands up and shrugs on her backpack. You're not sure if she's still mad, or thinking about it, or what, until she looks over and winks at you still dazed on the couch. She leaves, and you hear her say, "Just on my way out, tell Mr. Wheaton hi from me," before the door slams shut and the barking of your dogs sees her home.

OOOOO

You are seventeen years old, and you just told her the news. You've been accepted to LSU with good financial aid. It was your reach, and her safety. Your next choice was a thousand miles away, and you'd both instantly agreed to do a long-distance relationship. You're not sure how you feel, now, knowing that won't be an option.

She kicks her sneakered feet against the park bench and sighs. It's not a disappointed sigh, you think. But it's been a long week—a long year—for both of you. You sit in silence for a while, thinking your different thoughts, soaking in the same sun.

"Well." Whatever disappointment she might feel is carefully masked. She bends over, rummages in her backpack, and pulls out a well-thumbed notebook. Takes notes while she talks—she's always been a great multitasker. "We need to think about what we're doing this summer. You've got your job, of course—but you might want to find one that gives you better hours. We should make sure we get dorms that are pretty close. Oh, and—" Jot, scribble, underline, jot—"we'll need to find a church with afternoon services."

"Of course."

She writes in silence for a while, and you just watch her, hoping fruitlessly that some of that sniper-aim concentration would float off her and make its way to you. It hasn't worked yet, but hey, you never know.

She stops, looks down at what she's written, then turns to look at you. "Josh."

"Hm?"

You don't know what it is, but something about what she sees makes her smile, and her gunmetal face softens. "You know I love you, right? I love you. And we're going to make this work."

You grin and reach over, gently closing her notebook, leaving her pen marking its place. It's been so long now, and so familiar, and you'll never find the right words to say it, but…kissing her feels like home.

You pull away and look at the ground. Somehow, in the middle of things, the notebook fell, cover down, its pages splayed in supplication. You can hear the smile in your voice when you respond.

"Yeah, I know, Kara. I love you too." You've said it before. You'll say it again. You hope you'll be around to say it to her forever. "And we're going to beat the _hell_ out of college—"

"Josh!" Fake shock accompanies her pseudo-slap. "Language!"

You laugh, and kiss her again, trusting that the open notebook keeping watch won't tell anyone what happens next.

OOOOO

You are nineteen years old, and she's still beautiful, but that's not enough anymore.

You're at your first real funeral. You've gone to funerals before, of course—a smeared amalgam of memory, of shiny shoes and huge bouquets, of your mom dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. Both of your grandfathers are dead. But back then you were insulated, muffled by youth and distance. The funerals didn't make you feel. You can't even remember if you cried.

You shake loose your thoughts as you approach the casket. Radisson looks—well, _old. _Older than he ever looked in class, in your debates, in life. Your throat feels raw, like it'll tear apart if you move your lips. You're not even crying. And you don't feel anything.

Ayisha's behind you, waiting her turn, but you pause. You rummage in your pocket and pull out a pen—black, glossy, heavy in your palm. The kind you see businessmen use in movies. You bought it yesterday, and you hope he likes it. You slide it in the chest pocket of his blazer, feeling self-conscious, hoping you're doing the right thing.

This act completed, you take a deep marathon breath and shuffle down the line. Ayisha catches up to you and puts a hand on your shoulder. And then you see Kara.

Your mind's still hazy, trapped in webs, thinking of death and stings and evolution and love-hate grips. And so your first thought, thankfully unsaid, is, _Wow, she doesn't look good in black._ Her dress is tight. Her face is rigid, and livid, and very pale. And finally she speaks in a whisper.

"I hope you're happy. You know this is your fault, right? If you hadn't done all this—" She gestures, hunting for the right words, or maybe mustering the guts to say them. "All this _bullshit_, with the debates, and the _witnessing_, he wouldn't be like this. He wouldn't be dead."

Ayisha's grip on your shoulder tightens as you open your mouth and try to speak. You rasp for a second, and cough, your eyes stinging, and finally respond. "You don't know what you're saying, Kara. I didn't—I couldn't have done this. He died in a car crash. You know that. I didn't have anything—"

"I know what I said. I stand by it." Kara shoots a poison-dart look at Ayisha, and apparently she understands it, because she lets go of your shoulder and walks to the door, starts talking to the Unitarian preacher. Leaves you and Kara alone.

Kara looks down for a minute, chewing her lip. Then she continues. "I also hope you know that this—that us—" She flaps her hands, successfully distilling six years of both your lives into a single dismissive gesture. "That _we _are through. Absolutely through."

You're falling. Your necktie's a noose, and the handle's been thrown, and you're _falling_, and Ayisha's hand isn't there on your shoulder to pull you back up. You swallow and cough again. "Kara, I—I can't, I mean, you can't do this, we've had—_six years,_ Kara, you turned down goddamn _Vanderbilt _for me, you can't—"

You're babbling, and you don't blame her at all when she cuts you off. "I know." And then, like a femme fatale, a master of paradox, in a thrift-store dress and sneakers, she gets on tiptoe and kisses you, her hands at her sides, clean and brief and cruel.

She breaks the kiss with steel in her eyes. "Goodbye, Josh."

She walks through the church doors as if they were opened just for her. She doesn't look back. And it takes Ayisha, lovely Ayisha, dark and sweet, shining her faith like a star—it takes this girl you've hardly known for a week to come back and hold you as best she can. You're shaking all over, and crying, _finally,_ and you can't help but feel like a sinner, because you and Radisson both know your tears aren't for his sake.

You are nineteen years old, and a third of your life just walked out the door. And as your crying trails off, and you're wiping your eyes like the tears will rust, you realize that you're happier than you've been in a long, long time.

OOOOO

_(A/N: This is my first fanfic in five years. It feels good to write again. And the characters in this movie just begged to be headcanoned, to be backstoried, to be fleshed out and given life. I hope they're satisfied.)_


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